Kukla's Korner Hockey

RALEIGH, NC – Jim Rutherford, President and General Manager of the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes, today announced that defenseman Joni Pitkanen will miss the entire 2013-14 season.

Pitkanen, 29, suffered a broken left calcaneus (heel) bone on April 2 against Washington, and missed the Hurricanes’ final 13 games of the season. The 2013-14 season would have been his sixth with Carolina and 10th in the NHL. The Oulu, Finland, native has scored 57 goals and earned 225 assists in 535 career NHL regular-season games with Philadelphia, Edmonton and Carolina, since beginning his NHL career in 2003-04. Since the team’s relocation in 1997, Pitkanen (6’3”, 210 lbs.) ranks third among defensemen in assists (116) and points (140), tied for fourth among club defensemen in goals (240) and eighth among team blueliners in games played (266).

added 2:27pm,

Rutherford said CT scan showed initial surgery was successful. But the stability was not there when Pitkanen tried to put weight on heel.